Calls for Gen. Ratwatte's resignation

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 27 January 1998, 23:59 GMT]An effigy of Deputy Defence Minister Anuruddha Ratwatte was burnt in Colombo this afternoon by demonstrators who were demanding his resignation over the bomb blast in Kandy.

More than six hundred people gathered at the Lipton Circus, in the heart of Colombo, protesting the lapse in security in Kandy which led to the bomb blast at the Dalada Maligawa or the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic on Sunday.

Sources said that the demonstration was backed by United National Party, the main party in the parliamentary opposition.

Meanwhile 20 million rupees has been released from the President's Fund for the reconstruction work on the Temple which President has ordered to commence at once.

A senior monk in the Buddhist hierarchy, Rambukwelle Vipassi Thero of the Malwatte Chapter has said that he will not permit slipshod work in the redecoration of the temple.